GT Advanced Technologies Inc., Apple Inc.’s partner in a sapphire glass plant in Arizona, will hold its first chapter 11 bankruptcy court hearing on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, Reuters reported yesterday. Investors are eagerly anticipating the hearing, at which GT has said that it will explain the events that led to Monday's surprise bankruptcy filing, which sparked a 90 percent drop in the company's stock.
An affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management got court approval to buy Atlantic City, N.J.’s shuttered Revel Casino Hotel for $110 million in cash on Tuesday after a judge rejected complaints the auction for the bankrupt complex was tainted, Reuters reported yesterday. "I have heard evidence to satisfy me that the sale to Brookfield should be confirmed," said U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Gloria Burns at the hearing in Camden, N.J. The Canadian investment firm's Brookfield Property Partners picked up the 1,400-room beachfront hotel and casino for a fraction of the $2.4 billion it cost to build. Glenn Straub, a Florida developer who was outbid by Brookfield, blasted the auction as unfair because it was declared over at 5 a.m. on Oct. 1 when he needed more time to put together a bid of up to $140 million.
Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. Monday failed to persuade a bankruptcy judge to sign off on an agreement with Carl Icahn that would have allowed the beleaguered gambling company to use its scarce cash as it attempts to survive in chapter 11, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The ruling from Judge Kevin Gross sent the company and Icahn into renewed talks about what it will take to keep the money flowing at the Atlantic City operation, and its only remaining casino, the Trump Taj Mahal on the boardwalk, open. As secured lender, Icahn has the power to refuse Trump Entertainment access to the cash it needs to mount a turnaround effort. Judge Gross sided with unsecured creditors who said that it is too soon, less than a month into the bankruptcy, to cement terms that would tie the hands of low-ranking creditors in a chapter 11 proceeding that offers them little or nothing. (Subscription required.)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/judge-rejects-trump-entertainment-deal-w…
In related news, the union representing workers of the bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. plans to block an Atlantic City street two days from now to protest management requests to give up their pension and health care plans, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Unite Here, which represents 270,000 workers nationally, met with Trump representatives twice last week and has been unable to come to terms, Bob McDevitt, president of the union’s Local 54, said in an e-mailed statement. Another meeting is scheduled for this week. Trump Entertainment, the casino operator founded by Donald Trump, declared bankruptcy last month in the wake of continued declines in gambling in New Jersey. The company owns the shuttered Trump Plaza hotel and its Trump Taj Mahal may close next month.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-10-06/trump-casino-union-to-bl…
Revel AC Inc. should reopen bidding for its Atlantic City casino, which Brookfield Property Partners LP won at auction last week, according to a Florida investor who claimed that he was cheated of a chance to make a higher offer, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Revel, which cost $2.4 billion to build, closed last month after two years of unsuccessfully trying to make a profit in the struggling New Jersey gambling center. It accepted a $110 million offer from Toronto-based Brookfield on Oct. 1 after an all-night auction. Glenn Straub, owner of the Palm Beach Polo Golf and Country Club in Wellington, Florida, protested the way the auction was handled, saying in a court filing Oct. 5 that Revel broke an agreement to provide details about competing bids. Straub also said a “life or death” medical issue hindered his ability to counter Brookfield’s winning offer. The sale is scheduled to go up for approval today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey.
Creditors of bankrupt wireless company LightSquared and the company's owner, Harbinger Capital Partners, will once again try to reach a mediated restructuring deal after a judge raised the prospect of converting the case to a chapter 7 liquidation, Reuters reported yesterday. With a deadline for confirming a plan just weeks away, Harbinger and two creditors, MAST Capital and JP Morgan, had crafted a plan that would carve out and hand over certain spectrum assets to creditors. Lenders who have collateral claims on LightSquared's operating assets objected, arguing the plan could derail the process for getting regulatory approval for LightSquared's spectrum.
Comcast Corp. took its fight against the sale of the Texas television channel that broadcasts Major League Baseball's Houston Astros and the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets to the courtroom, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur began hearing arguments on Monday over whether Comcast SportsNet Houston can get out of bankruptcy by selling itself to DirecTV and AT&T Inc. Under the proposal, the channel would not repay a roughly $100 million loan that Comcast extended to get the network started in 2012.
Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., will ask a bankruptcy court judge on Tuesday to approve a $110 million sale to Brookfield Property Partners, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Brookfield Property Partners was declared winning bidder on Wednesday at the end of a three-day auction for the property that began last week and continued into this week. But a Florida real-estate developer has vowed to continue to fight Brookfield for the property. Glenn Straub, who led the bidding for Revel, said the bid from Brookfield was conditioned — a violation of the casino’s court-approved bid rules. Straub started bidding at $90 million in cash and was bid up to $95.4 million before he was topped by Brookfield’s $110 million offer. Built at a cost of $2.4 billion, 47-story beachfront tower made its boardwalk debut in 2012 but failed to turn a profit, filing its second chapter 11 case in June.
A bankruptcy judge in Delaware on Friday granted a motion to move the pending bankruptcy of Great Northern Paper Co.’s East Millinocket operation to Maine, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reported on Saturday. More than 20 creditors, including the towns of Millinocket and East Millinocket and the Maine attorney general, asked that the case be moved from Delaware to bankruptcy court in Maine because 56 percent of the 1,159 creditors are within the state. Attorneys for GNP objected to having the case moved from the state where the company was incorporated, in part, because a new trustee would have to be appointed to administer the case.
Energy Future Holdings (EFH), the bankrupt Texas power giant, is warning that its restructuring plans could be put on hold if the IRS decides to pursue a more than $7 billion tax bill against the company, the Dallas Morning News reported on Friday. Dallas-based EFH is planning to sell off the transmission company Oncor at auction early next year. In court papers filed on Wednesday, EFH warned that if the IRS decides the power company must pay the taxes it could squash the deal. Companies including Hunt Consolidated, NextEra Energy, Berkshire Hathaway and CenterPoint Energy are reportedly examining a potential bid for Oncor. The federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware has ruled that EFH doesn’t have to publicly name the bidders.
RadioShack Corp., the electronics chain trying to stave off bankruptcy, reached an agreement with a consortium led by Standard General LP to refinance about $590 million of loans to re-stock ahead of the holidays, Bloomberg News reported today. Standard General, a New York-based hedge fund, will lead a group of lenders to refinance debt outstanding under a $535 million asset-backed revolving credit line from GE Capital, the lending arm of General Electric Co. Last month, Standard General said in a filing it’s working to improve RadioShack’s liquidity ahead of the holiday season. The fund, RadioShack’s largest investor, entered into an agreement lasting until June 2015 that prevents it from taking over the board or proposing an acquisition or restructuring without RadioShack’s consent.